2 gun indoor match management

[Catfish]

My club has started hosting a 2 gun, IDPA format match at our indoor venue. In just 3 matches, popularity has gone out the roof and all sorts of folks are coming out of the woodwork to shoot their long guns.

Last night we had 35 shooters, which seriously strained our ability to finish the match in the alloted time frame.

I've been running matches for about 10 years now, but I'm banging my head against the wall to figure out how to run the stages, particularly the rifle stages, more effeciently so we can get more quality shooting in, rather than stand and hose, which is what we devolved into as I realized we wouldn't make the time cut otherwise.

The range opens for setup at 6pm. We've got till 9pm. So we were able to run 35 shooters through 2 rifle stages and 2 pistol stages in that time, but I'm not happy with the quality of the stages last night and want to do better.

I've got a big bay (10m x 25m) for the rifles and a small bay (10m x 15m, with a neat little corner section in addition...) for the pistols.

I'm thinking about splitting up the big bay into two halves, and compressing two stages with less side to side movement and limiting movement to up/down range with a touch of lateral movement. Doing so would minimize the setup/tear down in between the stages, which is what we do now, and save about 10-15 minutes of standing around time.

thoughts?

Edited January 26, 2009 by Catfish

[RV man]

Catfish is mean and his stages are EVIL. Now that that is out of the way...how can we make this better?

I think the most time consuming thing is rifle management. We currently rack them and it just takes a lot of time. Other clubs leave them in the bag and put them back after a shooter is finished with the stage. This is very slow also!

What works for ya'll with a cramped indoor range?

Thanks for your help.

Bill

[Carlos]

We used to shoot 3gun at the 25 yard inddor at Shooters Paradise before it burned down.

-to simulate distance, make the targets smaller. A LOT smaller. We usually used a deck of playing cards at 25 yards. We also used white lifesavers candy as targets on occasion (BigLots had them on sale). Its about 1" in diameter - but what AR won't group under 1" at 25 yards?

-we mostly included prone ports for a lot of the targets.

As for speeding it up, eliminate the walk through. Seriously, just give the stage briefing, and then yell: "Who is my first shooter?!"

[PHolsted]

Wow I did not not know yall was doing 2 guns now.

It has been a while since my last trip to the big D but the next time I come I am going to make sure I bring the black rifle.

Now back on topic.

One thing I could think of is to try and have the first stage a long rifle stage that could then just be cut in half to become two pistol stages. It would take a lot of stage design before the match but might save some time during the match.

Later dude!

[HighVelocity]

The 2 gun matches have been great and I feel like you've done a great job considering the venue, time constraint and number of shooters.

The idea of mandatory RSVP on the website could work. A "pre-registration" in a sense. As popular as this is, I imagine that next month the turnout will be even higher.

[Catfish]

All good ideas, guys - anyone else??